The new year is just a few hours away, so I thought I’d take some time to look through my music library to pick out some albums that I really liked this year. It get’s increasingly hard to pick a “best” album each year, so here’s 6 that stood out among the rest of the new music that flowed through my ears.

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Athlete – Black Swan

Mat Kearney – City of Black and White

Mute Math – Armistice

Passion Pit – Manners

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz

Directly below are albums that include more than a few tracks that I liked but overall, I couldn’t stand to listen to these albums from beginning to end without skipping a few tracks. That’s not to say that they shouldn’t catch your ear though.

Jay-Z – The Blueprint 3

Calvin Harris – Ready For The Weekend

Rob Thomas – Cradlesong

Relient K – Forget And Not Slow Down

And finally, here are this year’s two best mixtapes which are generally available for free download if you do a quick Google search.

Donnis – Diary of an ATL Brave (presented by 10.DEEP)

Chiddy Bang – The Swelly Express

If you aren’t convinced of my choices above, please feel free to chime-in in the comments section under this post and tell me what you think I ought to be listening to instead. I’m always open to suggestions.

Have you heard Pure Reason Revolution – Amor Vincit Omnia? I’m not saying it will change your list, but I think more people should have heard it. It’s sort of electronica heavy prog rock with repetitive vocal harmonies. Their first album was cool, too.